Plastic Pilot

General Aviation and Aviation In General
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Best of the aviation web - 15 May 08

May 15, 2008 - My Favorite Links No Comments →

Search more, you’ll find more. This principle perfectly applies to aviation resources on the web. I use to bookmark interesting aviation sites to later share them on this blog. There is a drawback in doing that: the list grows quickly, and I don’t want to turn this blog into “PlasticSurfer”. So here is the first […]

Night Shift With Airline Maintenance Team

February 17, 2008 - On Airports and Airlines No Comments →

After last landing of the day, the engineering and maintenance teams take care of the airliners. Problems reported by the pilots are examined, and various preventive checks are done. Heavier periodical maintenance is planned well in advance, but each night, planes undergo some maintenance.
A couple of years ago, a friend of mine invited me to […]

Modern Planes Are Green Part 4 - Green Approaches

January 09, 2008 - Modern Aviation, On Airports and Airlines No Comments →

Approach routes are defined as segments - straight or arc of circles - each with a minimal altitude. The steps can be of various length and the descents have various slopes. The design of procedures is influenced by three main factors:

Obstacles
Airspace design - keep departures and arrivals apart
Noise sensitive area

As long as the prescribed altitudes […]

Cellular Phone On Board ? No, thanks !

December 24, 2007 - On Airports and Airlines No Comments →

Air France is testing an in-flight system allowing passengers to use their cell-phones in flight. The initial phase is limited to text messages and data transfer, but in three months phase two will make phone calls possible.
Technically speaking the system is based on a relay located in the cabin. Because of its proximity this special […]

Christmas in the air

December 21, 2007 - On Airports and Airlines No Comments →

Will you spend Christmas day or New Year’s day in an airliner ? If yes, try not to be a grumpy passenger - away from home for the best time of year.
I know this situation first hand, I was once on duty on the 31st of December evening, starting work at 11PM. Years ago, I […]

Plane… or train ?

December 20, 2007 - Speaker's Corner No Comments →

Some will call me heretic to raise such a question, but I’ve no taboos. On short distance trips the competition between train and plane is intense and flying is not always the good decision. I said short distance but as a traveller what matters is time, and even if train is slower total time of […]

Baggage Handling - 7 out of 1000

December 13, 2007 - On Airports and Airlines No Comments →

US Airways decided to give a bonus (100 $… woooow) to their ground staff if they reach two objectives : 60% of flights departing on time, and less than 7 miss-handling per 1000 piece of baggage.
This may sound like a good incentive, and I wish them success, but I hope they have much more ambitious […]

A strange airline incident…

December 09, 2007 - Air Accidents No Comments →

A Boeing 737 departing London Stansted airport flew for 6 miles at 500 feet (150 meters) above ground only, before climing to a safer altitude. This incident occured on 16th of October 2006, and the report has been published last week.
Shortly said, the crew misinterpreted a note meaning “don’t turn below 500 feet” and thought […]

Secrets Airlines Prefer You Don’t Know

November 22, 2007 - On Airports and Airlines No Comments →

Airline passengers have rights in case of delay or flight cancellation, even if airlines are not communicating a lot about it… guess why. European regulations updated on 17 February 2005 include compensations up to the full price of the ticket !
Any victim (oops, passenger) has to claim for his rights. Yes, airlines do infrom passengers, […]

British Airways Ghost Flights and Media

November 17, 2007 - On Airports and Airlines No Comments →

Some British Airways planes crossed the Atlantic recently with no passengers on board, and the media made big buzz about it, using words like “scoop”, “revelation”, “scandal”, and so on. Let’s try to have a fair look at it, getting back to facts.
BA could not take passengers on board these flights because of cabin crew […]